The Telegraph has been granted access to new documents from the UK's High Court that suggest News International (the UK wing of Murdoch's News Corp) deleted hundreds of thousands of emails on nine separate occasions.

The aim of these deletions would be “to eliminate in a consistent manner” emails that “could be unhelpful in the context of future litigation in which a News International company is a defendant”.

Here's why this is big trouble. After 2008, News International was legally obligated to keep evidence of phone hacking as civil cases were proceeding — but an email deletion policy was implemented in 2009.